Thursday, April 16, 2009

More Sugarplums from Ald. Druh Farrell

Confirming my theory that nothing that comes out of City Hall shocks me these days, I was not surprised to hear about Calgary Ald. Druh Farrell's recent "Sugarplum" idea. With what must be a lack of other priorities in her ward, this genius Alderman has decided to push ahead with a plan to shut down part of Memorial Drive on Sunday's this August, turning it into a Promenade.

For those who do live in Calgary, Memorial Drive is an East-West road that goes right through the City Centre, connecting people to Crowchild Trail and Deerfoot Trail. Farrell boasts that this is a "Great Idea" and wonders who would oppose such a wonderful thing? Well, a poll on QR77 yesterday showed that the majority of Calgarians do not support this idea.

Thankfully, our common sense Ald. Ric McIver has been outspoken on his opposition to this idea. But wait... Ald. Farrell confirmed that she does not need to take the proposal before City Council to get this type of closure approved. He vowed to try and pass a motion later this month to stop this nonsense.

Why would anyone oppose this idea? Here is my reasoning...

1) How can one Alderman decide to close a main road that is used by ALL Calgarians?

2) Why should anyone have to replantheir traffic route to appease Druh'ssugarplum ideas. Why doesn't she move her planned "Rollerblade and Mountain Bike love-in" onto a local side street in her Ward? This would avoid the potential inconvenience to the REST of the City.

3) Safety Concerns.... How will this area be policed? Will the city have to assign specific officers to monitor the area during the shut down? I would think so. What about the access to the rest of the road for Ambulance and/or Police vehicles trying to get through? Will she simply yell "CAR" and everyone will move to the side of the road like street hockey players?

4) Business concerns... Why would she want to restrict traffic to the shops in Kensington? Sunday's are likely slow as it is...why hamper potential customers from visiting the establishments in her own ward?

4) Please, Please Ald. Farrell...come up with something original. This idea is being copied from other cities, ( eg. Ottawa) Why not come up with a unique idea? You already got your $25MM designer bridge approved...just let it go already!

Hopefully Mayor, oops..I mean Ald. McIver will show City Council that this idea needs to be put to bed for good. If not, where will it end?

13 comments:

Time for the dumbest alderman in the City of Calgary to be voted out in the next municipal election. Druh Farrell is the worst alderwoman on council as she got a Failing Mark of an "F" for how she does her job so bad.

If Druh Farrell is about as smart as a 2 Watt Light Bulb and is no smarter than a sack of hammers.

Wow, "..a poll done on QR77 [an ultra far right-wing extremist nutbar radio station] showed the majority of Calgarians do not support this idea."

So, this must mean that all or a majority of Calgarians took part in the poll, right? False logic, of course.

A lot of people turned out for the closure on the first Sunday, without the doomsday scenarios mentioned here occuring. Kensington shops did not go bankrupt; nor was there a shortage of police; no one died from ambulances not making it through traffic, and ALL Calgarians did not end up protesting this closure as the so-called 'polls' would have predicted.

And who was it that gave Druh Farrell a failing grade?...That's right, the corporate news media, NOT her constituents.

Druh Farrell will be replaced in the 2010 election as her constituents are tired of her as she is categorized as the Calgary Village Idiot. The best job for Druh Farrell would be cleaning toilets at McDonald's for about $8 an hour as that is all she is worth as she is definitely a moron.

I sent this as a LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Calgary Sun & Calgary Herald. For your reading enjoyment...

As a resident of Glenbrook, I'm thinking of applying for a permit to close the intersection at Richmond Road and 37 Street SW for a festival. I think that our close proximity to the Glamorgan bakery (famous cheese buns & cinnamon rolls) is something to be celebrated. I figure that if people are stuck in traffic here at least, they can use that downtime to run in and stock up on their cheese buns.

Glenbrook is a bit too far from downtown to be able to easily walk or cycle. We in Glenbrook though, should also be able to flaunt our communitys' 'inner city central' location and wave it under other Calgarians' noses. The more that we can hold them up in traffic will prove our point even more. Seriously, the Bow River Flow festival has been a bad idea from the getgo. Misleading advertising here? I don't think so, but it is a very poorly designed advertising campaign when it irritates far more Calgarians than it succeeds to inspire, to the actual denigration of the supposed green cause. The persistence of one Calgary alderman despite all the hullabaloo never ceases to amaze me. Someone needs to help her, either with a hearing aid or with some basic common sense public relations advice.

Somebody should make a FOIPP request into her dealings with contractor tendors. She favors a few and they are not picked by her for their work diligence or low cost. Hmmm, something fishy. BTW, there is more to Calgary than Ward 2 and Memorial Drive is critical to many. Wait until emergency vehicles are held up because of the Sunday closures. Finally, how did she manage to get the pedestrian cross-walk, with vehicle stopping lights (unheard of for 4 lanes of traffic) along Memorial? It doesn’t meet the pedestrian/vehicle criteria. Don’t even get me started on the new bridge – how many do we need between Edmonton Trail and 10 St NW? Time for new blood – and honesty.

So here I was, looking for information on my ward when I came across this. As far as I can tell there are only three choices in Ward 7.

After giving it a read I figured I might as well acquaint myself with whoever wrote the article. After reading Shane's profile, I immediately began to laugh. "I support common sense ideas like the Conservative Party of Canada."

I wouldn't really call supporting torture common sense. Neither would I figure cutting corporate tax makes sense (small business tax cuts however, would make a lot more sense....). Also, Harper has done a simply wonderful job of ruining Canada's reputation on an international scale. But I don't know, maybe that is what passes for common sense now...

All your post here has done is given me more proof that perhaps she is the right alderman for ward 7.